Welcome to the Living Standards Management Survey Homepage of the World Bank.

Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) household surveys have become an important tool in measuring and understanding poverty in developing countries. The Development Economics Research Group (DECRG) of the World Bank, formerly the Policy Research Department, maintains this website to make available to researchers around the world the data sets and methodological lessons from these surveys.

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Introduction
A general introduction to LSMS surveys and data sets, including:

LSMS Documents, Questionnaires, and Data Sets
Follow these steps to see if an LSMS survey meets your needs:

Reports and Research
Publications drawing on LSMS data, including:

If you have publications or research not included on this site which draw on LSMS data, please click here.

What's New  

Links  

 Tools for Managers of New Surveys
Useful resources for those who are designing new surveys. Although based on LSMS experience, these tools may be helpful to those implementing any kind of complex household survey:

Tools for Using Household Survey Data
Basic tools for researchers and analysts using household survey data. These tools cannot be used without modifications, but provide starting points for each researcher's own analyses.

  • The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy, Angus Deaton
    This book is about the analysis of household survey data from developing countries and how such data can be used to cast light on a range of policy issues.
  • Sample Software from Analysis of Household Surveys - program code used in analysis for Deaton's new book.
  • PovcalNet - routines for calculating basic poverty statistics using grouped data.
  • Consumption and Income Aggregates - papers and programs applied to Pakistan and South Africa data.